This study investigated the effects of sleep deprivation on memory. A sample of 17 Long-Evans rats was deprived of water except for a 15-minute exposure. Day one just water was administered, day two grape juice was administered followed by a LiCl injection and day three both water and grape juice were administered. Half of the rats were sleep deprived on day two and taste aversion was calculated on day three. The groups gave unexpected results but the results were significant.
Sleep has been a widely controversial topic discussed in the study of learning and memory. The lack of sleep has been thought to disrupt learning and negatively affect memory. The association between memory and sleep is still being studied and many have supported
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It was concluded that test performance was not affected by REM sleep. There was also no significant data concluded in this study. Another study on hypothermia and conditioned taste aversion was done on male albino Wistar-derived rats (Hinderliter, Musci, Pollack, Misanin,&Anderson, 2004). These rats were investigated to see if hypothermia affected the effect of conditioned taste aversion. The rats were made hypothermic at different intervals following the taste aversion. The data suggests that shorter CS-US intervals resulted in amnesia and longer CS-US intervals resulted in an association based on a slowed metabolism. The data concluded that hypothermia altered the ability to learn. Bradley Youngblood, Jun Zhou, Gennady Smagin, Donna Ryan and Ruth Harris (1997) conducted a study entitled Sleep Deprivation by the “Flower Pot” Technique and Spatial Reference Memory. In this study, they put rats in a Morris water maze and test how long it took for them to reach the platform. However, after day one they were sleep deprived by being placed on a platform above water so if they lost muscle control, by trying to fall asleep, they would fall in the water. From trial one to trial four the time to find the platform, in the Morris water maze, doubled. This study concluded that sleep deprivation caused memory impairments. In the current study, in consistency with previous literature, our hypothesis was
Memory can also be affected by lack of sleep. Also peoples inability to remember things can be affected.
In a German university, the effect of mid-day napping was tested on 41 volunteers who took a word/word-pair recall memory test. They tested the variable of an hour long nap against the variable of an hour long movie clip. Researchers found that for some of the subjects, memory retention skills were five times better after taking a mid-day nap than those who watched the movie. But, their memory retention skills were just as good before the nap as after the nap. Researchers also found that only certain people’s memories benefit from a nap, and others stay unaffected. More research is necessary on this topic to find any sort of conclusion about the effect of the physical activity of napping has on memory retention skills. Those at the German university have a theory on why napping could improve a person’s memory. They believe that naps improve hippocampus function, the region in the brain where short term memory consolidation occurs. When awake, a person’s hippocampus will have an active neural firing pattern--one that activates during learning and during recall. When a person takes a mid-day nap, the hippocampus “tags” and consolidates the information it took in. As an effect of that process, the hippocampus is able to replay those “tags” upon wanting to recall information. The hippocampus’s ability to reorganize itself during sleep could possibly contribute to a person’s improvement in memory retention
In a laboratory study of sleep deprivation, researchers employed a variety of techniques to keep
In a laboratory study of sleep deprivation, researchers employed a variety of techniques to keep volunteers awake for variable amounts of time. One group of participants was kept awake for 24 hours, and the other was kept awake for 48 hours. During periods of forced wakefulness, participants were required to engage verbal learning tasks such as memorizing the definitions of obscure English words. At the conclusion of the period of forced wakefulness, participants were allowed to sleep for as
This paper examines five different sources of information that addresses information pertaining to wakeful resting or sleeping and the effects it has on memory garnered by experiments performed on humans and animals. Wakeful resting is defined as an individual that has not fallen asleep but has engaged in a period of rest that cuts them off from the distractions of the outside world. Sleep is the bodies natural cycle of rest that suspends the consciousness and allows both the body and the mind to take a break from any stressful activities and recover. By either taking a short wakeful rest or going to sleep after learning new material, memory consolidation in both humans and animals will be improved, and it is not limited to humans that
There are a few factors that are essential for life such as breathing or eating, but one of the most essential factor is sleep. Even though the amount of sleep people need differs from one individual to another, the fact is that eventually everyone needs to sleep. People know the importance of sleep, but due to the increased workload and the pressure of society people are getting less sleep. As a result, there has been an increase interest on the effects lack of sleep has on the mind especially the memory of a person. Many questions arose about the relationship between sleep and memory due to the fact most high school and college students have become sleep deprived. For example, does more sleep mean higher grades?
An article in Nature Neuroscience from February 2009 describes an experiment which was conducted regarding sleep and its correlation to memory. Memory was impaired after 35 hours of sleep deprivation weekly and constant shallow sleep. Regular sleep benefits memory as newly stored information is easily encoded. Proper sleep is crucial for processing and retaining new information. Those who suffer from sleep deprivation struggle to maintain new information and with comprehension skills. In order for students to maximize their learning capabilities, they need the proper sleep to be mentally prepared for
This article explains the importance of getting the perfect amount of sleep at night. The idea that sleeping for less than five hours or more than nine hours proves to have a negative effect on the human body. Sleep deprivation has a closely related link to memory retention and can cause a person to have trouble with daily task. The author continues to explain that not only is the brain effected by too little or too much sleep, but the rest of the body is also effected. Conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and even depression have links to not getting the perfect amount of sleep. The article concludes with listing tips to get the ideal amount of sleep at night, such as, going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day and limiting the amount of caffeine that is consumed throughout the day.
Most studies are about discovering the contributors of false memories. However, this study focuses on how sleep deprivation contributes to false memories even though many studies argue that sleep deprivation damages cognitive function. Their study went in detail by researching the effect encoding have during this process. They found that if a participant was sleep deprived during event encoding; he or she would increase the likelihood of falsifying memories. However, when the participant was sleep deprived after encoding had already occurred then there was no big impact on falsifying memories. These experiments are conducted on the effect of sleep deprivation contributing to false memories since false memories can have dreadful consequences.
A greater understanding of these complex and dynamic brain states has helped clarify the ways in which sleep enhances memory processing. An increasing number of sleep studies have behaviourally assessed the facilitative role of REM and NREM sleep on declarative and procedural memory performance in humans. The preliminary results provided initial evidence to the idea that hippocampal-dependent declarative memories, such as memories of personal events and fact-based information, are facilitated by NREM sleep (specifically SWS) and hippocampal-independent procedural memories are facilitated by REM sleep (Plihal & Born, 1997).
Sleep is essential for optimal human function. In fact, a lack of sleep can actually affect important cognitive functions, like memory. A 2007 study added to the already substantial evidence that even acute total sleep deprivation impairs attentiveness, working memory, and reaction time in various tasks (Alhola, Polo-Kantola). One such way to further this investigation of the effects of sleep deprivation on memory is through the Memory Interference Test, or MIT. MIT is a program designed by Gaston Pfluegl, Ph.D., and Enrique Lopez, Psy. D., at UCLA to test the memory of students. Along with a memory test, the MIT also anonymously collected the physical states, mental states, and demographics of each student test subject, providing a substantial database through which students can test hypotheses, such as the connection between sleep deprivation and memory. Since the MIT requires short-term memory recall, the hours of sleep a student had before taking the test could have a noticeable effect on his or her performance. An unprecedented study this year found that sleep deprivation may actually even induce false memories, which would certainly impact a student taking the MIT because the test requires the subject to recognize images that have been previously presented to them (Frenda, et al). The hypothesis is that students who slept 8 hours before the test will perform better on the MIT than students who only slept 4 hours. The null hypothesis is that students who had adequate
Frenda, Patihis, Loftus, Lewis and Fenn’s (2014) article titled “Sleep Deprivation and False Memories sought out to explanation how sleep deprivation can have a role in an individual’s cognitive function. One-way researchers went about unraveling this particular question was to uncover the invisible knowledge relating the formation of false memories with sleep deprivation. Two experiments were executed diving into the many ways that sleep deprivation can affect a person’s thoughts and general decisions, using many examples.
The data showed that the NSD mice had a greater performance score than the SD mice both times. But when both mice were tested again 5 days after training, the difference in performance was even greater. Showing that sleep deprivation hinders performance. This is in line what we have learned in class bout how lack of sleep often results in decreased cognitive function. More specifically how those who are chronically sleep deprived have decreased performance similar to those who have not slept at all. The SD mice were chronically sleep deprived and thus more prone to making mistakes. This is similar to the data that was present in class on how the chances of medical errors increase when working re-current 24 hour shifts.
Sleep is one of the unavoidable daily-living activities and it is one of the most important factors contributing to a person’s health. A quality sleep is essential for the physical, cognitive and psychological well-being of a person. Learning, memory processing and maintenance of the brain are among the most important functions of sleep. In addition to maintaining the brain, sleep has important roles in controlling the
Frenda and colleagues examined the relationship between sleep deprivation and the formation of false memories, due to prior research showing that there is a relationship between sleep deprivation and other cognitive functions, such as reaction time, working memory capacity, learning, and executive function. To support the methods they used, the researchers discussed types of false memory studies, which used suggestive questioning and misinformation procedures. They also mentioned that although there have been studies on sleep deprivation and false memory, the results have not proven to be very consistent, and they do not carry over into real life situations.